The United States of America should dispense with the Electoral College. At present, the president and vice president are selected in a process that does not give equal weight to all voters. Apart from Maine and Nebraska, states select electoral votes based upon a winner-take-all system. Because states have disproportionate populations, the weight of votes is worth more in some states than in others, particularly in swing states (in which no candidate is clearly favored). The campaign process then marginalizes large states that are considered “safe” (such as California for the Democrats or Texas for the Republicans), with candidates focusing instead on swing states, privileging some citizens’ votes over others. Additionally, the winner of the electoral vote will not always necessarily win the popular vote. This is fundamentally undemocratic and unfair, and it must be stopped.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The argument reaches the conclusion that the United States of America should dispense with its electoral college. This conclusion is based on the premise that the current voting system does not give equal weight to all voters, and that the candidates tend to only focus on swing states, since 'safe' states would not need more convincing. The author also states that the electoral vote winner does not always win the popular vote, and such a case would be undemocratic and unfair. However, in reaching these conclusions, the author fails to answer three important questions that would either make or break the validity of their recommendation.
First, are the 'weights' of votes assigned to different states not proportional to their true population? The argument fails to present any information or evidence about how these weights are calculated. It is possible that the number of electoral votes allocated to a state is proportional to the fraction of the country's population that resides in that state. If this were the case, then the popular vote and electoral vote would differ only in a few cases, not enough to warrant a full shift. Only if the answer to this question is 'no', can the author solidify their claims.
Second, even if the answer to the previous question is 'no', does the Electoral College have no possibility of improvement? In other words, rather than shifting to a different system, can the Electoral College be improved or tweaked to address the issues stated by the author? In the current framing of the argument, the author calls for a full overhaul of the system, and does not suggest any other one. Even if it is assumed that there is a better system, the author fails to consider the potential for the Electoral College to be modified. It may be the case that the electoral vote allocations become obsolete over time due to changing populations, but this could be alleviated by updating the assigned votes at a higher frequency. Perhaps, the US electoral votes could be based on a Census, or be modified based on the trends of previous population counts.
Finally, would shifting to a different system cause significantly lesser issues than the electoral college? The author assumes that switching to a new mode of elections would be better, but does not account for if it would produce accurate results. Consider what would happen if, say, a miscount occurred in Florida. In the case of electoral votes, the results would be, in a way, easier to calculate and verify due to its distributed nature among the states. If Florida's error occurred in a situation where one candidate has already achieved the electoral vote, then there would be less stress on Florida's result, and its vote-counters. It may be possible that this is different in a pure popular vote system, and that the thin margin that the top candidates differ by, is less than the votes a state is left to count. If the author were to clarify that a new system would avoid this sort of issue, and hence were to answer the aforementioned question, then they could strengthen their argument. Otherwise, the argument would stand unpersuasive.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its failure to answer the three questions discussed above. The author should gather evidence and consult comprehensive studies on electoral systems to substantiate their claims and conclusions. The answers to these questions could improve the argument, or make its conclusions unwarranted, but in its current state, the argument is unsubstantiated.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-08 | Technoblade | 66 | view |
| 2020-05-05 | elisabetta_fedele | 82 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 16, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'shift'
Suggestion: shift
...us population counts. Finally, would shifting to a different system cause significant...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, then, in conclusion, sort of, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2975.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 593.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01686340641 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.93473315629 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77664679247 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 262.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441821247892 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 938.7 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 11.0 1.67365269461 657% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.9749216531 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.423076923 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8076923077 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.15384615385 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.222559007154 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0742466413553 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0666591737119 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147456207023 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729773773937 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 131.0 98.500998004 133% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 16, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'shift'
Suggestion: shift
...us population counts. Finally, would shifting to a different system cause significant...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, then, in conclusion, sort of, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2975.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 593.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01686340641 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.93473315629 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77664679247 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 262.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441821247892 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 938.7 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 11.0 1.67365269461 657% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.9749216531 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.423076923 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8076923077 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.15384615385 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.222559007154 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0742466413553 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0666591737119 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147456207023 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729773773937 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 131.0 98.500998004 133% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.